Zifnab, you are awfully short sighted.
The illegal immigrants are there to respond to a demand : low salaries workforce.
It's a very badly kept secret which industry employ them. Here you know that you will find them in construction, restoration gardening and housekeeping. You can probably cite several establishment employing them, and if you can anyone can.
Yes, being a poor subgroup of the urban population, they are especially subject to drug usage and criminality.
But if you get rid of them, or if they become wealthier you will have hire native at way higher wage. If anyone want of these jobs a all.
That law is an awesome example of hypocrisy, because they are selling you this law as a deterrent for illegal immigration (of course it won't work), when it actually about ensuring that the migrant stay poor and helpless.
Then lower the minimum wage and expand the legal alien work permit programs. All it would take is a couple of pages of legislation.
Of course for this to work right, the government would have to get out of the housing markets and let home prices adjust to demand so that the people that would be working at the now lower minimum wage could find somewhere to live.
And if you didn't change the minimum wage, and industries couldn't exist paying legal salaries, is this really so bad? It would create demand for new technologies to revolutionize their industries.
There are two problems to this that I see. The first is that lowering the minimum wage would be unpopular and also wouldn't help many people other than the companies who employ large numbers of minimum wage employees, like McDonalds or other large corporations. Also, the minimum wagers would have less money to spend on luxury items, which would have an effect on the economy, however small, which would even hurt the places like McDonalds so it's a sword with a sharp handle.
The second and more important reason is that the illegal immigrant is not protected by the minimum wage as you mentioned. Here is the way under the table jobs work, at least where I live. Basically instead of being paid $7.50 or whatever with the tax taken out, you are paid $5 under the table which pretty much works out to about the same wage without taxes. In this way the minimum wage is more of a guideline as to how much you can pay your workers while avoiding taxes without them informing the government. Illegals wouldn't be able to talk to the government out of fear of deportation. I'd imagine there is even more incentive to pay under the table when your workers can't complain to the government, and to pay even less than you would to someone who can choose to tell the government. I've worked in roofing and cement before, and I was always paid under the table. The same with any temp job I've had for the summer, like running go-karts or selling fresh produce. The problem with relying on a certain number of alien work permits is that whoever is in charge of it can keep the number issued low enough to be ineffective, so that illegals will still come over anyways and be unprotected by minimum wage law. I agree with your statement that more legal work permits should be issued. The problem that will likely keep it from functioning correctly is that it would ruin this nice little system that provides cheap labor while stirring up the emotions of the people in the favor of a certain political party that is tied to the companies who benefit from the cheap labor.
Basically what I foresee happening is the people of Arizona becoming more and more bewildered as to why the hell the plan isn't working, while illegals still take the jobs building houses for half the wage paid to a legal citizen. In this way government, the native, and the immigrant are all taken advantage of by business and the politicians they control while the voting base is mislead into believing that the harsher one is on immigration, the more effective. As long as it isn't free and easy to become a legal immigrant, they will be taking your jobs due to being unprotected by the minimum wage, as strange as that may sound, while not making enough money to consume goods in a way that will enable the wages paid to the illegal immigrant to make as large a benefit on the economy, as well as not paying taxes.
From an economic view, it seems to me in the long run having a larger customer base would be a good thing for Arizona. The downside is on the individual level, namely that natives have to compete with immigrant people for jobs. This is what many people seem to focus on, without considering the fact that a Mexican paid minimum wage will probably consume just as much as a native while contributing to the expansion of the economy through that consumerism, eventually creating more jobs to service the new people. Immigration has had a huge effect in making regions powerful and to make their economies expand if it is handled correctly. New York City is still the largest city in the US, LA is large in part due to the California gold rush, and I'm sure there's other examples in US history.
Also, how is the government in the housing market? I don't have too much knowledge in the area, but I have a hard time believing it's mostly due to the government that house prices in the free market system rise or fall. My guess is it is tied to speculators, AKA real estate firms, buying up anything reasonably priced and charging 25-40% markup on it from what they paid. If those prices are raised too high through speculation, then the bottom falls out like what happened in that housing bubble that had such a bad effect on the economy.
Finally, how would it benefit the government to have it's people be unable to buy a house without a soul crushing loan to pay off? That sounds more like the realm of private business to me.
Also, when I say native, I mean a non-immigrant whether white, red, or brown, no offense meant.
Zifnab, just out of curiosity because I never hear anyone speak about it, what are the American Indian's goals? Are the efforts separated by tribe or is there a sort of confederation among them all working towards a common goal? Also, what goal is that and is it supported by the majority or is it fringe groups?
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Topic: Arizona Bill Refuses Citizenship to Illegal Immigrant Children (Read 11510 times)